Party of Regions

The Party of Regions is a centrist party in Ukraine that was founded on 26 October 1997 by Volodymyr Rybak. The party contained several different groups with varying ideologies, but the party agreed upon its love for Russia and its hatred for the European Union. From 2001 to 2002, the party's membership jumped from 30,000 to 500,000, as the party began to claim that it represented the rights of Russians in eastern Ukraine. In 2010, the party claimed 700,000 members in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, most of them Russians. In 2014, President Viktor Yanukovych's corruption and embezzlement led to the Euromaidan protests, and the party became unpopular with liberal Ukrainians after Yanukovych ordered for police to fire on protesters in Kiev's Maidan Square. In February 2014, the Ukrainian government was overthrown by the demonstrators, and Yanukovych fled to Russia. The new Ukraine, one ruled by a liberal-conservative government, would discriminate against Russians in eastern Ukraine, as the Russians sought to join Russia while the rest of Ukraine drifted towards the European Union.